Columbus, Ohio

Columbus, Ohio is the capital and largest city in the US state of Ohio, located in the center of the state in Franklin County. The city was founded in 1812, named for explorer Christopher Columbus, to decide the issue over whether Chillicothe or Zanesville would be the state capital. In 1834, Columbus was chartered as a city, and the statehouse was opened in 1857. The city produced carriages before becoming a center of the steel industry, and the city's diverse economy led to it surviving the Great Depression. By the 1990s, Columbus had grown to be Ohio's largest city, and its metro area had a population of 2,424,831 people in 2010.